BBC staff accuse leadership of sparing senior ranks from up to 2,000 job cuts

The deputy director general's evidence was a forecast. "I think when we look back at the changes that have been introduced, you'll probably see that it's at the most senior levels that some of the steeper reductions have happened," Rhodri Talfan Davies said ^[7]. The Guardian's account of the call puts the plan's total at up to 2,000 jobs and does not break it down by grade ^[18]. On that record it is not yet possible to tell whether the senior layers are intact, as staff allege, or thinner than the rest, as Davies expects.

The staff case is also an assertion, but a lot of people made it. One questioner called the BBC "an incredibly top-heavy organisation" and added: "All the 'doers' are getting cut." ^[3] There were so many similar questions that Anna Foster, the Radio 4 Today presenter hosting the call, put the point to leadership herself: "People are feeling that perhaps disproportionately ... some of these cuts are landing on people who are more junior, and less so on people in managerial roles." ^[5]

On morale, Brittin disputed the premise. A questioner had cited a Guardian report on low morale and asked: "How do the executive team propose to tackle this during the financial crisis we're all working through?" ^[14] "I don't dismiss the impact of uncertainty on everybody, but we also have a really powerful, motivated staff and I don't think that narrative applies to everyone," he said ^[8].

One questioner summed up the skeptic's position: "I don't want to hear about savings when bosses get huge salaries." ^[4] On savings, there is something on the record. The government and the BBC are examining a plan that would require anyone who watches any streaming service to pay the licence fee, designed to arrest a fall in the number of households paying ^[13]. Answering the point about salaries would take figures by grade. More announcements are due in the next few days ^[16].

The BBC can keep announcing cuts in rounds, or it can publish how they divide by grade. It has announced cuts gradually since the summer, across news, local content and the media tech division ^[10]. Employees say the pace has left them feeling ground down ^[16]. Attaching a grade breakdown to the next round would test Davies's forecast in public. Holding it back keeps leadership's options open, and the same question will come back on the next all-staff call.

Brittin used the same call to show staff the iPlayer overhaul. He told staff the BBC was "going to be smaller" but could still have a bigger impact, and that it needed to be "a bit more Elvis - a little less conversation, a little more action" ^[15]. He believes iPlayer has become outdated and has put much of his attention into overhauling it ^[17]. The version he showed carries BBC YouTube content, including the World Service, which has more than 2 million YouTube subscribers ^[12]. The staff who remain after the cuts will have to build it, and on this call many of them were asking who had been spared ^[2].